How do you understand the meaning of character 田

华中师范大学外国语学院 李华田

The Chinese character 田 (tián), which means "field" in English, uncovers plentiful and colorful Chinese culture and conjures up a profound image and best wishes in Chinese people's minds.

象形图案"田"

甲骨文"田"

金文"田"

小篆"田"

楷书"田"

The character 田 originates from Old Chinese, the Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which appears in the Shang Dynasty (1600B.C.—1046B.C.), the first dynasty in China's history that has written records. Thus it has a very long history of about 3600 years. Then with the development of a long history, its spelling is simplified and changes into "田". The periphery large circle "口" represents the boarder that circles the田or the fence preventing wild animals, and the cross "十" in the middle signifies crisscross footpaths or canals in the 田. From this we can see that the original meaning of 田 is "农田"(nóng tián, farmland or field), which means land for growing crops.

Obviously, the character 田results from ancient China's slavery system "井田制"(jǐng tián zhì, the "nine squares" system of land ownership in ancient China's slave society). The king of the Shang Dynasty allocates national land to serf owners, and every serf owner divides one large square into several small fields (like the character 井) and his serfs have to cultivate these fields for him.

Since the basic meaning of the character 田has a lot to do with farming, there appear a lot of phrases which are closely linked with agriculture, village and peasants, such as田地(tián dì, cultivated farmland), 田野 (tián yě, open country), 田埂(tián gěng, footpath in a field), 田陌 (tián mò, path in a field), 田间(tián jiān, among the fields), 田舍 (tián shè, farmhouse), 田垄 (tián lǒng, ridge), 田赋 [tián fù, land tax (in ancient China)], 田产(tián chǎn, land and estate), 田父(tián fù, old farmer), 田家(tián jiā, a farming family or a peasant family), 田间管理(tián jiān guǎn lǐ, field management) , 田径运动(ián jìng yùn dòng, track and field), 田猎(tián liè, hunt), 田田 (tián tián, lotus leaves linked together), 田园 (tián yuán, countryside), 田园诗 (tián yuán shī, pastoral poetry).

Nowadays, the character 田 has got a wider range of meaning and every kind of land full of production can be called 田 in Chinese, such as煤田 (méi tián, mine field),气田(qì tián, gas field), 盐田(yán tián, salt field), 油田(yóu tián, oil field).

And because every crisscross footpath or canal is arranged in perfect order in a large piece of crop land, there appears a Chinese idiom "井井有条"(jǐng jǐng yǒu tiáo). So the character 田 also gets a derivative meaning and signifies "to be put in the right place or good order"

When the character 田 is used as a verb, it has the same meaning as "畋"(tián) which means "hunting", just as Jiang Lihong(蒋礼鸿) says in Read and Remember Words(读字臆记): There are fields for growing crops, and there are also fields for hunting. The two characters have the same spelling but are different words in fact(有树谷之田字，有猎禽之田字，形同而非一字也).

simply speaking, the spelling of the character 田 can be explained as the following: ten persons live in a countryside, a small mountain encircles the village, two suns shine brightly up in the sky, and one mouth includes four mouths(十人住一国，一山环四周，双日齐相辉，一口包四口).